SENT on a Mission: Help Catholic Business Leaders to Live Their Faith

Like most startups, SENT Missions was launched from a basement with little funding.

Unlike most entrepreneurs, founder John Cannon’s startup came after he spent seven years in a Carmelite monastery.

Now, three years after its launch, SENT has grown into a major apostolate, partnering with more than a thousand Catholic businesses and executives, aimed at helping Catholic business leaders live out the faith in their jobs.

“I became very compelled by the idea of supporting Catholic entrepreneur leaders. I think these are the type of people who will have an outsized impact, regarding faith and culture, in every sector of the economy,” Cannon told the Register. “There was nothing in the Catholic sphere that does this ministry, so I became interested in building that kind of community with God.”

Before joining the Carmelite community, Cannon gained extensive business knowledge working on Wall Street and attending top business schools: Harvard, Oxford and Notre Dame. After discerning out of the monastery, Cannon tapped back into his entrepreneurial roots and launched SENT.

“I went to Notre Dame and focused on business. I worked in politics for a little while and then went to business school and then worked for an investment bank and started a little consulting practice, and I had a lot of great opportunities over the years,” Cannon said. “But I was never really satisfied facing success with the work-hard, play-hard lifestyle I had. One day, I had this intense spiritual experience that just changed everything.”

“I went from reading The Wall Street Journal daily to tearing through spiritual books and rediscovering my Catholic roots.”

Now, Cannon is hoping to help other Catholic business leaders rediscover their Catholic roots and cultivate a community of business leaders who support one another in growing in the faith.

“SENT is really a community and a platform for Catholic founders and entrepreneurial leaders,” Cannon said. “When you’re starting a company or organization, it’s very isolating, especially in your faith. It’s hard. Having a community of other leaders who really want to be close to God, be holy, but also perform excellently and build great companies and organizations is very helpful.”

Brian Kearney knows that isolation well. Eight months ago, he launched his new startup, Farmland Stocks, a group that helps find and support those investing in agricultural land. As a Catholic, he understands the struggle of integrating his faith life with the business world.

“The biggest struggle is that most companies and most investors don’t have the same values you do. They don’t see the value of human life the same way; they don’t see the value of paying people fair living wages,” Kearney said. “There is this common idea that, in the Catholic world, you can be seen negatively for wanting to build a big business; and in the business world, you can be seen negatively for being Catholic.”

Kearney connected with SENT soon after Cannon launched the initiative. However, he only just began participating in the ministry’s various activities. For Kearney, the community he has found in SENT has been transformational.

“Participating in SENT has really helped me to stay grounded and remember what is important,” Kearney said. “The people I have met through SENT have been able to relate to my struggles of having to travel a lot for work while also trying to be an attentive father and husband, and offer me support and advice.”

When he launched SENT, Cannon knew that he wanted to prioritize creating a supportive community for Catholic leaders. SENT focuses on developing and leading small groups that meet virtually; it also hosts regular events to help people network and grow spiritually and professionally.

“Business leaders tend to get their spiritual support over here and their business support over here,” Cannon said. “We want to find an integrated community where these leaders can find help with their business strategy and goals and objectives, and then they also can find integrated spiritual support to grow and to flourish.”

In addition to their regular programs and activities, SENT hosts the annual SENT Summit, bringing business leaders together for a three-day conference where they welcome keynote speakers, host small groups, provide the sacraments and offer networking opportunities.

“The SENT Summit is an in-person [event] for these people who want to build great companies, organizations and apostolates with God and receive support,” Cannon said. “It is a way for these people to inspire and challenge each other, develop new ideas, and then also find partners and relationships for the mission.”

Kearney attended this year’s summit, held from Sept. 3 to 6 in Fort Worth, Texas. During the conference, SENT recognized multiple startup companies and mission initiatives in its “pitch” competition. The winners are awarded prize money and are judged based on the business concept and whether the company’s policies align with Catholic social teaching.

Farmland Stock Exchange was recognized as one of the pitch finalists after Kearney shared his vision and business model in front of the 400 attendees.

“It was a huge honor to be chosen as a finalist,” Kearney said. “The selection criteria were tough: You have to be a venture-backed company; you must be something that can get to a large scale, but you also must be fully in line with Catholic social teaching. It’s kind of a difficult box to hit, so it was super humbling that we were selected for that honor.”

According to a press release, the 2024 Pitch Competition and Mission Showcase awarded a $10,000 prize, $50,000 in-kind prizes, $1,500 grants, and opportunities for Catholic founders and ministries to connect with values-aligned investors and partners. Finalists included Kearney; Elie and Viviana de Laforcade, co-founders of THSVox; Daina Andries and Mark Stephenson, co-founders of Epidaurus Health; and Daniel Catone and Andrew DeBerry, co-founders of Arimathea.

SENT also recognized various new ministries that are trying to grow their presence in its Mission Showcase, which highlighted five emerging ministries. One ministry that was recognized for its unique evangelization efforts was Icon Ministry’s “MetaSaint.”

Launched 10 years ago, Icon Ministry seeks to find unique ways to evangelize the Gospel, primarily in Australia. Last year, the group launched MetaSaint, an initiative to create a server on the popular Roblox video game. The ministry seeks to proclaim the Gospel to middle-school and high- school-age students where they are — playing video games.

“Roblox has 80 million daily active users, and there was no credible source of evangelization on this platform,” Mark DeMicoli, the executive director of Icon Ministry, said. “We then contacted one of the leading software companies that makes games for Roblox to explore this idea of developing a game.”

He added, “We are casting a wide net and reaching to the sort of peripheries; we wanted a game that will teach the essential parts of the faith.”

Since it launched, Meta Saint has interacted with more than 3.5 million players. The server functions as an obstacle-course game where players encounter various saints and figures from the Church, such as St. Augustine and Blessed Carlos Acutis, who provide basic catechetical sessions during these virtual interactions.

“Roblox is where the kids are, but we don’t want to keep them there. We want to bring them out of that and bring them into the Church, especially those who are maybe second- or third-generation unchurched,” DeMicoli said. “A web-based game or an app will give us opportunities to be able to connect with them and plant the seeds of the faith in them and then hopefully connect them to different Catholic communities around the world.”

This is the second year DeMicoli has attended the SENT conference. Last year, he connected with a variety of Catholic business leaders and entrepreneurs.

“I love seeing old friends at the conference,” DeMicoli said. “The SENT conference is well crafted in the sense that it gives you an opportunity to spiritually refresh yourself through access to the sacraments and daily Mass and adoration. It is also great listening to the witness of all these men and women in the keynote speeches who are doing such wonderful things for God.”

Daniel Cruz and Bob Hogan, founders of Presidio Healthcare, were awarded the $10,000 grand prize for their groundbreaking approach to becoming the country’s first pro-life health insurance company, according to the press release.

Though the conference is over, SENT’s work continues. Cannon told the Register he hopes that SENT will leave business leaders feeling empowered to integrate their faith into all aspects of their lives so that they can be witnesses to the Gospel in both their workplaces and at home.

“The corporate world trends toward embracing ideologies that are not consistent with Catholic values or the faith,” Cannon said. “Often, your faith life, your family life and your work life are compartmentalized. I think there’ s a hunger now for more integration, where I can be my whole self at my work, my family, my church group, and have those worlds integrated together. We want to help people integrate their faith into everything.”